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These rooks are, properly speaking, what we call capons or piqueurs, in France; men who always carry money about them, to enable them to lend to losing gamesters, for which they receive a gratification, which is nothing for such as play deep, as it is only two per cent., and the money to be repaid the next day.
Our piqueurs were especially trained to hunt the boar, and it was inspiring to see how both men and dogs took to their work. We reached the forest before the sun was high. The woods had already been beaten by boys with kiaki a kind of wooden clapper, of which the name describes the noise. The marcassin had been found, and the dogs put in at once.
"These are my piqueurs," said the girl, turning to me with a gentle dignity. "Raoul is a good fauconnier, and I shall some day make him grand veneur. Hastur is incomparable." The two silent men saluted me respectfully. "Did I not tell you, monsieur, that I should prove you wrong?" she continued. "This, then, is my revenge, that you do me the courtesy of accepting food and shelter at my own house."
These rooks are, properly speaking, what we call capons or piqueurs, in France; men who always carry money about them, to enable them to lend to losing gamesters, for which they receive a gratification, which is nothing for such as play deep, as it is only two per cent., and the money to be repaid the next day.
The ladies dressed in rich furs and velvets, the riders in brilliant red coats on prancing horses, the attendant grooms, the piqueurs in their gay liveries, green and gold with green-velvet jockey caps, made a wonderful spectacle. The day was superb, the sun shone brilliantly through the autumn foliage, the hazy distances were of a tender hue, and everything had an exquisite tint.
The whole thing could have been over in fifteen minutes, but the piqueurs, with great skill, managed to make a whole morning's amusement out of it, and it was noon before the joyous hallili of the huntsman's horn proclaimed that the wild pig was dead. All the ceremonies of presenting the boar's head were gone through with before the king, in an open glade in the forest.
The rendezvous was at the Carrefour l'Etoile, and when we arrived the hunters and equipage, with the piqueurs and the chasseurs from the neighborhood, who belonged to the Imperial Hunt, were already there. The Imperial equipage de chasse is composed of ten piqueurs, valets de chien, valets a pieds, valets a cheval, and valets de limiers, and one hundred English hounds.
As the chasseur waved the skin, the piqueurs let the hounds loose, and when they were half-way across the court, approaching the object of their desire, the piqueurs called them back, in order to show how well disciplined and under what complete control they were. The tantalizing of the poor animals was repeated several times.
But its most piquant transformation is the Comedie lyrique of Poinsinet, acted at Paris in 1765-6 to the lively music of Philidor. The famous Caillot took the part of Squire Western, who, surrounded by piqueurs, and girt with the conventional cor de chasse of the Gallic sportsman, sings the following ariette, diversified with true Fontainebleau terms of venery:
It is the care of the valet during this interval to conceal the pieces of flesh which are still under the body. The hounds are then loosened, but are kept within bounds by the whips of the piqueurs and the valet des chiens. When the dogs are sufficiently exasperated the brutes are allowed to rush upon the remains of their victim; only, however, to be driven back again by whipping.
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